The Judge Report

Wandering through Barnes and Noble at Colonie Center today, I came across Bill O’Reilly’s frankly charming new book (I read fast when I find a comfortable chair in a book store), a memoir of sorts, A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, the title coming from a nun’s description of him in parochial school in 1957. The cover photo is a a great shot from his First Holy Communion. It brought back quite a few memories of my own.

Including some I share with O’Reilly.

We had a mutual friend in Joe Spencer, a classmate of my brother Tim, who went on to become a correspondent for ABC News and died in a helicopter crash in 1986 while covering a story.

Joe’s birth name was Spaletta. His dad Phil ran our local radio station and a regular lunch companion of my father’s and later of mine, long after I had ceased working for him as a weekend DJ and jack of all trades. My first recollections of him were of a chubby, but gregarious 14 year old. Among other things, he was a customer of Mom’s after supper tutoring service, a whole-family operation. Private lessons (mostly in math) were two bucks an hour, group lessons a dollar apiece. Joe was bright and didn’t need a lot of extra help, but I’m sure Phil recognized a bargain.

My little brother Sean had problems saying Spaletta as a three year old and usually called him Joe Spaghetti.

Joe became my sidekick when I was a senior and student varsity baseball manager and scorekeeper. Eventually he replaced me when I retired midway through the season ( causing a precipitous drop in the batting averages of Joe Riley and Jim LaBate). He eventually filled my shoes on the radio as well, though he had been born into that. He had an engaging style and for a while was known as Joe “Saturday” Spencer.

Then he went on to media school, by and by landing in Denver where he and O’Reilly became fast friends. Read the book for their hilarious adventures together.

Fast forward to the 1980 GOP convention in Detroit.

You couldn’t get on the floor without the proper credentials, of course. But by the second or third day a couple of us delegates conspired to share credentials for an hour or so to allow our wives to come down out of the balcony and join us. No sooner had Mary sat down with me (looking incredibly guilty, as I recall) then a real official looking guy came to the end of our row, pointed to me and signaled for me to come over.

I froze.

“Bob! It’s me, Joe Spencer!”

I laughed heartily. No longer the pudgy kid, he was strikingly handsome with a $50 haircut and All-American smile.

Joe was then working for a tv station in Detroit and his dad had asked him to look me up and record my thoughts for the folks back in Amsterdam.

Once we got that out of the way, we made up for lost time and brought each other up to date. He was a man on the way up.

“Seriously, Bob, my goal is to be back here in four years as a floor correspondent for one of the networks.” I had no doubt he could do it, though it took him just a little bit past the four year cycle to get to ABC. 1988 would have been a sure thing.

*******

The two principal eulogies at St. Michael’s Church in Amsterdam were given by Peter Jennings and Bill O’Reilly. (Peter Jennings, by the way, called Phil and Fran Spencer every year thereafter on the anniversary of Joe’s death). O’Reilly tells the story well. According to what Phil told me some time later, Roone Arledge was so impressed with O’Reilly’s off the cuff remarks that he decided to hire him, which happened a few months later.

Joe was 31 years old and recently married.

The whole town was numb, of course.

I thought back on our last conversation, sometime when he had come home for Christmas. He told me how he envied his younger brother, Phil, Jr.

“Phil will never leave Amsterdam. He loves it here. He’s perfectly happy hanging out with his friends at a sports bar on the south side every Friday and Saturday night. You don’t know how much I wish I could be like him. But I can’t.

“I’ve got this driving ambition. It’s all-consuming. I have to be the best. I have to go as far as I can go.”

He shook his head, as though he didn’t understand it.

And I remembered the happy-go-lucky 14 year old and his happy-go-lucky little brother.

Sometimes there are just no explanations.

[UPDATE 2/2/2009: Anyone who can explain the sudden extensive interest in this post tonight, please leave a comment! Thanks]